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Milica
Bravacic studied at the Academy of Applied Arts and Academy of Fine Arts and has received her MA in
Visual Arts from Belgrade's University of Arts.
As a painter Ms Bravacic exhibited
throughout Europe and her works are in many private collections in Europe, United States and Asia.
For her fourth solo exhibition in 1988, she was invited by Mr.Jose Ribeiro Sommer, director of the
Galleries of Modern Art of the Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisbon, Portugal. Most recently in March
2006, she displayed her work at Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in Singapore (Exhibition: The Shape That Is, mural in front of Jendela Gallery).
Ms Bravacic artistic work covers various areas from painting to fashion design. She
exhibited her art in Belgrade, Zagreb, Rijeka , Dubrovnik, Venice, Lisbon and Singapore. Ms
Bravacic contributed to stage costume design for theatre performances (“Evil Spirits”,
Dostoyevsky, Belgrade and recently to the stage design of Peter Brook's “Tragedy of
Hamlet”, Dubrovnik Festival 2003, Dubrovnik). She also conducted her own successful line of
children's fashion and household accessories (Commissioned by Mothercare & Ikea).
In
the area of Theory and Research, she focused her work on a number of essays such as
"Russian Avant-garde Movement 1917-1930" (1982), "Enclosed by the City Walls”
(Baroque in Dubrovnik, 1985), Art Management, (1998), "Modern Times-concise on Modern
Art", 1999, and other critics and reviews.
As an educator, Milica taught Western Art History at NAFA and Western and
Asian Art History, Design and Society, History of Fashion, Drawing and Visual Thinking at
LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore. She also taught Art and Design at Chatsworth
Int'l School in Singapore.
In 2004 Milica taught drawing at "Orita Sinclair.Intl.School of Art and New Media" in
Singapore, and ran the HS program at Singapore American School. In 2006, she is a lecturer /
consultant at Temasek Polytechnic.
Apart from her consultancy work, she ran specially designed courses for the future instructors in
free-hand drawing (ITE, Singapore), and has continuously prepared portfolios for the prospective
students of the well known world art colleges such as St.Martin's College in London, Parson's
School of Design in New York, and similar (references).
Under her tutelage these students
are guided from their basic understanding of drawing techniques to the complex creative tasks at
her home/studio in Singapore.
Currently, apart from her pedagogic work, Milica is preparing a new project, solo exhibition
at The Arts House in Singapore.
“When I visited a modest studio in the old and picturesque part of Lisbon in which Milica
Bravacic worked on her paintings, I was intrigued and interested in her way of presenting some
typically Portuguese themes.
Now, I believe that it is of great interest how she has
treated themes such as "feiras", "azulejos" and Portuguese architecture. At the
same time Milica's sojourn in Portugal has not deprived her from the Mediterranean touch in her
work...”
Exc.Jose Ribeiro Sommer,
Director of the
Galleries of Modern art of the Gulbenkian Foundation
“With her 19 pieces exhibited in the Gulbenkian Foundation, M. Bravacic displays a
colorful vision of Lisbon, abundant with imagination, through which anxiety and humour have been
interlaced.
Painting procedure in her work has been developed through the superimposition
of various pictorial layers, in interplay of the transparent versus opaque pictorial
effects”.
Chake Matossian, curator-critic,
Gulbenkian
Foundation / Diario de Noticias, Lisboa
”Milica is a sensitive traveler through centuries which have been reflected in the beautiful
ambiance of Dubrovnik, her hometown. In her canvases she constructs pictorial stories using various
planes and dimensions of some existing artifacts: a shape of the Romanesque window has borrowed the
format to her paintings; the ideal geometrical order of the city streets she turns into abstract
structures with deeper. philosophical meaning.
St. Blaise, a patron of the city, has been
positioned highly on the city walls in order to protect it's citizens-his invisible presence over
this famous Medieval town has turned into a symbol of higher order, and his raised arm worshipped
as a relic.
Milica evokes other symbols of the city, it's Renaissance and Baroque
sculptures and edifices and gives them a contemporary dynamics and vitality” .
Dr. Irina Subotic, Head curator - art historian, National Museum,
Belgrade
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